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By Root 1101 0

I fix my eyes on two middle-aged men at a table close to ours, playing chess and talking Germanic Hebrew. One of them is sucking and stroking a cold pipe made of reddish wood, the other occasionally wipes invisible perspiration from his high brow with a checkered handkerchief. A waitress comes over and whispers something to the man with the pipe, and he begs the other's pardon in his Germanic Hebrew, apologizes to the waitress too, and goes across to the telephone next to the serving hatch. When he has finished talking, he hangs up, stands for a moment looking forlorn and lost, then stumbles back to his table and apparently asks his chess partner again to excuse him, then he explains something to him, in German this time, hurriedly puts some coins down on the table and turns to leave; his friend is angry and tries almost by force to put the coins back in his pocket, but the other resists, and suddenly the coins are rolling on the floor under several tables, and the two gentlemen have stopped parrying and have gone down on their knees to pick them up.

Too late: I have already decided for them that they are cousins, the only survivors of a family that was murdered by Germans. I have already enriched their story with an enormous legacy and an eccentric will under the terms of which the winner of the game of chess will receive two-thirds of the inheritance while the loser will have to make do with one-third. Then I introduce to the story an orphan girl of my own age, who has been sent from Europe with Youth Aliya to some kibbutz or educational institution, and she, not the chess players, is the real heir. At this point I step into the story myself, in the role of the knight in shining armor, the protector of orphans, who will wrest the legendary inheritance from those who are not entitled to it and restore it to its rightful owner, not for nothing but in exchange for love. But when I get to the love, my eyes close again and I have an urgent need to cut the story short and start spying on another table. Or on the lame waitress with her deep black eyes. This, it seems, was the beginning of my life as a writer: in cafés, waiting for ice cream or corn on the cob.

To this day I pickpocket in this way. Especially from strangers. Especially in busy public places. In line at the clinic, for instance, or in some bureaucratic waiting room, at the railway station or the airport. Even sometimes when I am driving, in a traffic jam, peeping into the car next to me. Peeping and making up stories. Peeping again, and making up more stories. Where does she come from, by her clothes, her expression, her gestures as she touches up her makeup? What is her home like? What is her man like? Or take that boy over there with the unfashion-ably long sideburns, holding his mobile phone in his left hand while his other hand describes slicing movements, exclamation marks, distress signals: why exactly is he getting ready to fly to London tomorrow? What is his failing business? Who is waiting for him there? What do his parents look like? Where do they come from? What was he like as a child? And how is he planning to spend the evening, and the night, after he lands in London? (Nowadays I no longer stop in terror at the bedroom door: I float invisibly in.)

If strangers intercept my inquisitive look, I smile absently at them by way of apology and look away. I have no desire to embarrass. I live in fear of being caught in the act and asked to explain myself. But, anyway, after a minute or two I have no need to keep peeping at the heroes of my casual stories: I've seen enough. Half a minute, and they're caught in my invisible paparazzi camera.

Waiting at the supermarket check-out, for instance: the woman in front of me is short and plump, in her mid-forties, very attractive because something in her pose or expression suggests that she's tried everything and is unshockable now, even the most bizarre experience will do no more than arouse her amused curiosity. The wistful-looking young soldier behind me, who is only about twenty, is staring at this knowing